I just got back from Maine last night.  It was a very nice trip and quite a change from summer out here in the west.  I went back to visit family and introduce them to my bride to be but on Monday I made the trip up to Bangor to visit Central Maine Diesel.   Phil took some time to show me around.  Listers are only a small part of their business but they have a good stock of listeroid parts on hand.  The major part of their business is in much larger industrial generators.  Phil showed me the projects they are working on including a big oil press attached to a 12/2.  The purpose of my visit was to pickup a spare head for my 6/1.  Phil gave me a good price on the head, which I brought home as carry on!  This saved me the shipping costs but at 46 pounds I can't say it was not work. 

In addition to a nice visit, Phil turned me onto a great antique store where I found a bunch of Starrett machine tools at amazingly  low prices. 

Just wanted to say thanks to Phil for the hospitality.

OK. I have my Listeroid 6/1 with an ST5 wired for 110V up and running at the ranch.  Its an off grid set up and always will be.  I have wired it to a panel with a 35 amp master breaker between the generator and the panel to prevent overload and protect the generator.

Three wires come from the generator.  One is a ground from the case itself which is wired to a ground buss in the panel.  In turn the ground buss is connected by a ground wire to copper ground rod cast into the foundation of the gen shed.  One of the hot wires from th head is wired to the breaker bar and the other is wired to the insulated bar (often called the Neutral bar) in the box.  I only have one plug and a light wired to one breaker at the moment but  so far everything I have plugged in works fine, including a compressor a TV and a VCR.

The things that puzzle me are these...

1) all the wiring books talk about two "hot" and "neutral" lines from the grid but I don't see how this translates to the generator.  I have two lines from the generator (wired 110) that complete the circuit and a ground to the case.  How can I  have one "hot" wire in a AC system where the the flow of the power switches direction?  And, if one of the lines out of the gen head is the "hot" line , how do I know which one it is?  To be clear, I don't want to wire it as a 220 head as I don't need the 220, I want the full amperage on the 110 circuit and I  don't have to balance the load between the two circuits. 

2) The wiring code calls for a connection between the "neutral" bar and the ground at the master panel.   I don't see how this would not short circuit the generator with my installation.

I am no electrician and what I know comes from wiring manuals and the instruction manual for the ST5.  As I say, the system works fine the way I have it wired I just want to make sure before I extend the wiring into other circuits. 

In simple terms can some one address my questions?

Well, I went out today and did some work on the frankinlister.  I had assembled the big end on the crank when it was out and checked it with plastigauge.  It came out about 1.5 /1000 without any shims, which was fine.  But, I didn't fully torque it down.  So, when I got it in the engine, I torqued it and it locked up tight as a tick.  So, now I am looking at cutting some shims out of 1/1000 brass shimstock and setting the gap again.  My manual says nothing about shims, but they are available from an English lister parts house.  I went looking for some information on this on the web and found a short film of a guy assembling a Lister lower end and he only used one shim (he tightened down the back bolt then slipped in a shim on the front side and torqued it down).  This seemed a bit odd to me.  Can anyone spell out what the proper shimm technique is?  I know its a pretty simple question but, what the hey, its keeping me from getting this thing running.

On the other hand, I'm still having some problems with my idler gear binding but, another trip to the lathe and that should be fixed.  Its tough working on something 45 miles away, without electricity, and no precision tools.  Ah the joys of off grid!